Hell, Cocytus (Maladomini)

Maladomini is a hell of ruins, the seventh layer of Hell. Everything natural on the layer has been defaced, destroyed, or stripped away, replaced with strip mines, quarries, poorly maintained roads and bridges, rivers of molten lava, slag heaps, wasted cities, and polluted canals, filled with stinking vapors, earth tremors, fire pits, and mines. Petitioners and other refugees hide in the ruins. Underground, the ancient diabolic predecessors to the baatezu still lurk.

The archduke Baaalzebul, the Lord of the Flies, rules this layer. He is never satisfied with his cities, always demanding that they be destroyed and rebuilt based on tiny, unnoticeable flaws. Nothing less than perfection will do for him, even if he has to destroy his entire layer – indeed, all of Hell – to achieve it.

The major intact cities are Grenpoli, the city of treachery and diplomacy run by the erinyes noble Mysdemn Wordtwister, a fortress called the Relentless, and Malagard, a city of black spires from which Baaalzebul
himself rules.